21 Shocking Images That Uncover The World Cup’s Dark Side

By Kiri Picone

Published June 29, 2014

Updated December 5, 2017

The FIFA World Cup is always a roller coaster of emotion. We root for our favorite teams, boo when the referees make terrible decisions and feel a deep, unalienable sense of nationalistic pride when our team fights for a win, despite all odds.

Yet with all of the success and thrills presented by the World Cup every four years, the tournament’s seedy underbelly is hard to conceal. From increasingly violent demonstrations to brutal player-on-player contact to a thriving demand for prostitutes, it has an undeniable dark side. These shocking images explore the dark realities of the booming phenomenon that is the 2014 FIFA World Cup: